One of the developments of the situation is that the Tariff Commission is very much opposed to administering any licensing system. It came to the ears of the Commission that it had been suggested as the proper body to administer the licensing machinery, and the

ing mining engineer for the American International Corporation. The present headquarters of the International Exposition of Mining Industries is Room 421, 405 Lexington Ave., New York.

opposition to most of the licensing suggestions, but emphatically urged that it not be selected to administer any of the licenses.

Dr. Hoyt S. Gale of the Geological Survey, in testifying this week before the House Ways and Means Committee, said that the German potash industry could not regain the position it held before the war. The increased cost of labor and the internal condition of the industry, he said, were such that German potash would have to sell for at least $1.50 per unit.

Dr. Gale returned to Washington last week from Europe, where he made a study of the potash industry, and it was at the special request of Secretary Lane that the Ways and Means Committee summoned him to testify.

W. E. Sharp, president of the Western Potash Works and of the American Potash Co. of Lincoln, Neb., denied to the Committee that the potash industry of this country was controlled by the packers. He admitted, however, that one company was owned by the packers, but said that the products of that company were used by the owners in the manufacture of fertilizer.

The hearings on potash and dyestuffs before the House Ways and Means Committee will not be resumed until after the House recess, Sept. 8.

International Exposition of Mining
Industries

A permanent exhibit of mining and metallurgical machinery is to be established under the direction of the Merchants and Manufacturers Exchange of New York, which has taken over Grand Central Palace for the purpose of maintaining industrial exhibits of various kinds. Approximately 50,000 sq.ft. of space, or one entire floor, will be devoted to the machinery and supplies used in the development and operation of metal mines, non-metal mines, coal mines and oil wells; subsequent extraction or refining of the raw products by concentration, leaching, cyaniding, flotation, smelting, distillation, coking, etc.

The new enterprise enjoys unusual support in the backing of the Nemours Trading Corporation, of which Alfred I. duPont is president. The corporation owns and controls the Merchants and Manufacturers Exchange of New York and has branches in the leading cities of the world consisting of 19 branch offices and 3000 foreign selling agents. The purpose and function of the venture are to develop both foreign and domestic trade in all lines of industry and to establish at a central point a permanent exhibit of machinery and products for the benefit of foreign and domestic merchants.

The exhibit of mining industries will include aërial and surface transportation, laboratory appliances and supplies, blast-furnaces and other ore-treating equipment, compressors, crushers, concentrating machinery, hoists, drills, power machinery, ventilating equipment, etc. The exhibition will be under the direct management of Mr. Howard R. Ward, a mining engineer who prior to entering war work was for three years consult

Dyes and Chemicals

The War Trade Board Section of the Department of State quotes, for the information of those concerned, the following provisions of the Treaty of Peace relative to German dyes and chemicals:

ANNEX VI

1. Germany accords to the Reparation Commission an option to require as part of reparation the delivery by Germany of such quantities and kinds of dyestuffs and chemical drugs as the Commission may designate, not exceeding 50 per cent of the total stock of each and every kind of dyestuff and chemical drug in Germany or under German control at the date of the coming into force of the Treaty.

This option shall be exercised within sixty days of the receipt by the Commission of such particulars as to stocks as may be considered necessary by the Commission.

2. Germany further accords to the Reparation Commission an option to require delivery during the period from the date of the coming into force of the present Treaty until Jan. 1, 1920, and during each period of six months thereafter until Jan. 1, 1925, of any specified kind of dyestuff and chemical drug up to an amount not exceeding 25 per cent of the German production of such dyestuffs and chemical drugs during the previous six months period. If, in any case the production during such previous six months was, in the opinion of the Commission, less than normal, the amount required may be 25 per cent of the normal production.

Such option shall be exercised within four weeks after the receipt of such particulars as to production and in such form as may be considered necessary by the Commission; these particulars shall be furnished by the German Government immediately after the expiration of each six months period.

3. For dyestuffs and chemical drugs delivered under paragraph 1, the price shall be fixed by the Commission, having regard to pre-war net export prices and to subsequent increases of cost.

For dyestuffs and chemical drugs delivered under paragraph 2, the price shall be fixed by the Commission, having regard to pre-war net export prices and subsequent variations of cost, or the lowest net selling price of similar dyestuffs and chemical drugs to any other purchaser.

4. All details, including mode and times of exercising the options, and making delivery, and all other questions arising under this agreement shall be determined by the Reparation Commission; the German Government will furnish to the Commission all necessary information and other assistance which it may require.

5. The above expression "dyestuffs and chemical drugs" includes all synthetic dyes and drugs and intermediate or other products used in connection with dyeing, so far as they are manufactured for sale. The present arrangement shall also apply to cinchona bark and salts of quinine.

German-Owned Chemical Plants Sold

The largest single day's sale of German-owned property was made at public auction on July 18 by the Alien Property Custodian. The sale of three chemical plants brought $4,419,980. The successful bidders were W. E. Coffin & Co. and the American Analine Products, Inc., of 80 Fifth Ave., New York.

The Roessler & Hasslacher Chemical Co., of 100 William Street, New York City, with plants at Perth Amboy, N. J., and St. Albans, W. Va., was bought in at $505 a share. The stock of the Niagara Electro Chemical Co. sold at $4000 a share, the total price being $440,000. The concern has offices at 100 William Street, New York, and plants at Perth Amboy, N. J., and Niagara Falls, N. Y. The Perth Amboy Chemical Co. stock went for $940,800, or $480 a share.

FIG. 1.

T

HE great importance during the war period of substituting Mid-Continent coal for coals from more distant sources even in by-product coke-oven work was well recognized. The Bureau of Standards was ordered to conduct an investigation of a new cokeoven process claimed to be especially suited to this purpose, and in connection with this the Bureau was requested to conduct a test of the St. Paul plant of the Minnesota By-Product Coke Co., which is owned by the Koppers Co., Pittsburgh. The Bureau of Standards, in co-operation with the Bureau of Mines, carried out this operating test, using during 7 days about 7700 tons of coal from the Orient Mine, Franklin County, Illinois.

The plant is usually operated with a mixture of Pittsburgh, Elkhorn and Pocahontas coal at normal coking times of about 16 and 17 hr. The normal capacity of the plant is approximately 1100 tons of coal per day. For the test period only Orient coal was used. Since the coking time for this coal was slightly longer than for the usual mixture, the capacity of the plant was reduced somewhat.

All phases of coal handling, by-product recovery and laboratory tests were under observation by the staff of

This is an advance publication in abbreviated form of Bureau of Standards Technologic Paper No. 137. Published by permission of the Directors, Bureau of Standards and Bureau of Mines. + Engineer chemist, Bureau of Standards. Assistant chemist, Bureau of Mines.

37 Government engineers and chemists employed on the work. In addition, those in charge had the benefit of advice and comment from a considerable number of experts who are specialists in the field of coke-oven operation. The quantity of all coal used and of all byproducts obtained was carefully weighed or measured at regular intervals and samples of each material were taken for analysis. The Bureau of Standards was responsible for the general planning and supervision of the test work. Its representatives made all observations of battery operation, high temperature measurements, by-product recovery, and chemical laboratory work on gas and by-products. The Bureau of Mines was responsible for the sampling of the coal both as it was loaded at the mine and as crushed at the plant. It supervised the weighing, coal-handling, coke-handling and coke-sampling operations and made all analyses of coal and coke. Its representatives also made general observations on the character of the coke and operation of the ovens.

The Minnesota By-Product Coke Company plant consisted of 65 ovens, built with a gross regenerative system, operating during the test period with an average gross coking time of 19 hr. and 33 min., with coal finely pulverized, 12.75 tons per oven as charged. Each oven was 39 ft. long, 9 ft. high, 17 in. wide at the pusher side and 19 in. at the coke side, making a 21-in. taper with an average width of 18 in. The coke was

discharged from the ovens by the usual style of ram pusher into the common form of hot coke car and quenched in a tower of the usual kind. After discharge on the wharf it was handled by a typical conveyor system through two screening stations. The coke was screened to produce large and small furnace sizes; stove, nut and pea, domestic sizes and breeze. The gas was separated into rich and lean at the battery. Separate test records were kept of each size of coke and of each quality of gas. Practically all of the ammonia produced was made up into sulphate immediately through the direct recovery process. Although the plant operated for the production of pure light-oil products, only the total production of light oil was measured, but the yield of various constituents was determined by analysis.

COAL USED

The coal was apparently clean and very well screened. The impurities consisted of a small amount of pyrite, mostly in the form of thin layers, calcite, mother of coal, and shale. The coal was crushed at the plant with the intention of making it as fine as was feasible with the apparatus available. As charged to the ovens, over 95 per cent passed through a 4-mesh sieve, and about two-thirds passed through a 10-mesh sieve.

A composite sample of the crushed coal sampled from the conveyor belt was made up from the daily plant samples and analyzed according to the laboratory methods described in Bureau of Mines Technical Paper No. 8; the results are presented in Table I.

In Table II is given the total amount of coal used and the average coking time for the period of the test.

PUSHING AMPERAGE

No consecutive record was maintained of the current necessary to push the oven charges. However, sufficient data were obtained to show that, in general, the charges pushed easily, though not as easily as with the usual coal mixture. It generally required from 180 to 250 amp. to start the charge and from 120 to 180 amp.

mass and in the vapor above the coal. Measurement of high temperatures in a by-product coke oven is attended with great difficulty because of the inaccessibility of certain points where temperature measurements are desirable and because of the limited variety and high cost of apparatus which can be used for these purposes. The results obtained are sufficient, however, to give an accurate idea of the range and average temperature maintained at the important points in the heating system.

A complete survey of temperature conditions through the entire battery was, of course, impossible; but rep

resentative points were chosen and the results given in Figs. 3 to 6 inclusive are typical of all operations. During the period of the test certain optical pyrometer measurements were made by the company engineers which confirmed the fact that the locations chosen for our regular measurements were typical.

The general trend of heating wall temperatures, before, during and after charging the adjoining ovens, is given in Fig. 3. These temperatures, of course, are not as high as prevail in certain parts of the wall refractory, for example at the lower regulating brick near the air port, where the maximum temperature is reached. To show the effect of gas and air reversal on the temperature in the heating wall, the curve of Fig. 4 is given.

Temperature measurements were made at three places in four consecutive charges of coal in oven No. 3. Readings were taken with couples 10 ft. long, introduced through charging lids as nearly as possible midway between the oven walls. The mean of the temperature-time curves for these locations is plotted in Fig. 5. Short thermocouples were introduced through the charging lid nearest the pushing end of oven No. 3 to measure the vapor above the coal. Four curves for four consecutive charges are shown in Fig. 6.

Over the checker-brick in the right half of the regenerator under oven No. 3 at the coke and 54 in. in from the face of the regenerator wall the temperature averaged 1140 deg. C. The variation in temperature during reversal of direction of gas burning was about 55 deg. C. at this point. Temperature measurements taken at the junction of the waste heat tunnels from the two batteries averaged 272 deg. C.

COKE HANDLING

During the test, two different systems of screening were used as follows:

Screening System No. 1-The coke was delivered by the conveyor over an inclined-bar-grizzly screen in the first station. The screen was about 5 ft. long, 4 ft.

wide and consisted of 11-in. bars spaced from 14 to 11⁄2 in. The oversize was delivered in the railroad cars and weighed as "furnace coke." The undersize delivered on a second belt conveyor was carried to a second screening station, where it passed through an inclined-rotarycylindrical screen, the first half of which consisted of -in. square perforations, and the second half 13-in. square perforations. The material passing through the -in. perforations was re-screened on a 1-in. shaker screen to separate the breeze and pea size coke. The material passing through the 18-in. perforations was called nut coke, and that passing over the 18-in. perforations was classified as stove coke. The breeze, pea, nut and stove sizes were separately loaded in railroad cars and weighed before shipment or storage. Nut and stove sizes, as delivered from their respective bins, passed over shaker feeders before going into the railroad cars. The pea and breeze sizes were thus very completely eliminated from these two domestic sizes. Since the separation of "furnace coke" by the inclined-bar-grizzly in the first screening station was not considered satisfactory because the screen was not large enough to handle the quantity of coke passing over it and make a good separation, a change was made after three days of the test to the second system, which was as follows:

Screening System No. 2-The inclined-bar-grizzly in the first screening station was discarded and replaced by a 21-in. rotary grizzly, the oversize of which was delivered directly into railroad cars as "foundry" or "large furnace" coke. The coke passing through the first rotary grizzly was carried to the second screening station, where it passed over a second rotary grizzly set at 13 in. The oversize of this second grizzly was designated as "small furnace" coke. The material passing

through the second grizzly was separated by the rotary cylindrical screen and sized exactly as in the first system. The furnace coke from the first system and both sizes of furnace coke from the second system, after being weighed, were stacked in a pile at the plant during the test period, so that they were subsequently available for a blast-furnace test as described later. The stove, nut and pea sizes were sold for domestic fuel, as is customary from this plant. The breeze produced was used as boiler fuel at the plant, following the regular practice.

COKE YIELDS

Table III shows the different results obtained from the two screening methods. The results for the entire period are summarized together in Table IV.